Ahmanson Ranch Unworthy of Award

* In regard to the Valley Newswatch item Oct. 6, “Good Plan,” the Ahmanson Ranch project:

The theme for a recent Santa Barbara planning association convention was “Redefining Paradise.” No wonder Ahmanson Ranch won!

Never mind the pending lawsuits against the project. Never mind that Ahmanson (owned by Home Savings) and Bob Hope reneged on a deal that cost the public $28 million. This was a group of planners in a hurry to take the wine tour.

Funny though that a bunch of experts would plant a big kiss on the ugliest, meanest kid on the block. You’d think any award-winning project would at least have its own roads in and out. Isn’t that sort of the definition of a sustainable community?

Do you suppose those planners considered 37,000 cars a day through someone else’s neighborhood the part of the plan that made it work so well? Sounds like a plan that could win an award.

Say, all these planners do know what paradise is supposed to look like, don’t they? I’d feel really sick to my stomach if I couldn’t trust the state’s planners to work out all those icky questions nobody else seems to be able to answer, like traffic, smog and junk like that. Sitting around Santa Barbara, pondering solutions with bankers, lawyers and politicians, they must know what they’re doing. Like money in the bank, right?

JANICE LEE

Malibu Canyon

* It is sadly ironic that in a city synonymous for sprawl, a planning award is given to a proposed development that paves the way for more sprawl. The Ahmanson Ranch Specific Plan by Home Savings was rejected by the Ventura County planning staff and Planning Commission. It connects Los Angeles with Ventura County by moving the equivalent of 60 Rose Bowls full of dirt, leveling more than 1,200 oak trees and placing a new city in the middle of a designated open-space greenbelt. In an area that presently acts as an airshed to the city with the worst air pollution, this development will be accessed only by personal vehicles, with no transit proposed. One would hope that planners would take the lead by awarding renewal plans for inner cities, not praising the devastation of the natural environment and the deterioration of our quality of life.

LINDA PARKS

Thousand Oaks